The perfume and tint of the blossom
Are as fresh in vale, dingle, and glen ;
But say, is the pulse of our bosom

As warm and as bounding as then?

"Three bunches a penny, Primroses!
"Three bunches a penny, come buy!

A blessing on all the Spring posies,

And good-will for the poor ones who cry.

"Lavender, sweet Lavender!"

With "Cherry Ripe!" is coming;
While the droning beetles whir,
And merry bees are humming.

"Lavender, sweet Lavender!"
Oh, pleasant is the crying;
While the rose leaves scarcely stir,
And downy moths are flying.

Oh, dearly do I love "Old Cries,"
Your "Lilies all a-blowing!"
Your blossoms blue still wet with dew,
"Sweet Violets all a-growing!"

Oh, happy were the days methink
In truth the best of any;
When "Periwinkles, winkles, winks!
Allured my last lone penny.

Oh, what had I to do with cares

That bring the frown and furrow,

When "Walnuts" and "Fine mellow pears" Beat Catalani thorough.

Full dearly do I love "Old Cries,"
And always turn to hear them;

And though they cause me some few sighs,
Those sighs do but endear them.

My heart is like the fair sea-shell,
There's music ever in it;

Though bleak the shore where it may dwell
Some power still lives to win it.

When music fills the shell no more,
"Twill be all crushed and scattered;
And when this heart's deep tone is o'er,
'Twill all be cold and shattered.

Oh, vain will be the hope to break
Its last and dreamless slumbers;

When "Old Cries" come, and fail to wake
Its deep and fairy numbers.

THE OLD STOIC.

RICHES I hold in light esteem,
And Love I laugh to scorn;
The lust of fame was but a dream,
That vanished with the morn.

And if I pray, the only prayer
That moves my lips for me,

Is, "Leave the heart that now I bear,
And give me liberty!"

Yes, as my swift days near their goal, "Tis all that I implore;

In life and death, a shameless soul,
With courage to endure.

STANZAS.

OFTEN rebuked, yet always back returning
To those first feelings that were born with me,
And leaving busy chase of wealth and learning
For idle dreams of things which cannot be :

To-day, I will not seek the shadowy region;
Its unsustaining vastness waxes drear;
And visions rising legion after legion,

Bring the unreal world too strangely near.

I'll walk, but not in old heroic traces,
And not in paths of high morality,
And not among the half-distinguished faces,
The clouded forms of long past history.

I'll walk where my own nature would be leading : It vexes me to choose another guide :

Where the grey flocks in ferny glens are feeding;

Where the wild wind blows on the mountain side.

A DEATH SCENE.

"O DAY! he cannot die
When thou so fair art shining!
O Sun, in such a glorious sky,
So tranquilly reclining;

He cannot leave thee now,

While fresh west winds are blowing, And all around his youthful brow Thy cheerful light is glowing!

Edward, awake, awake

The golden evening gleams

Warm and bright on Arden's lake

Arouse thee from thy dreams!

Beside thee, on my knee,

My fairest friend, I pray

That thou to cross the eternal sea, Wouldst yet one hour delay:

I hear its billows roar-
I see them foaming high;

But no glimpse of a further shore
Has blest my straining eye.